• by Wayne Friedman , May 11, 2007

CBS and Viacom are making sure they are part of any promising Internet video service for the future, each buying equity stakes in Joost, the Internet-based TV service being launched by the creators of Skype and Kazaa.

Joost made this announcement yesterday along with other investors: Index Ventures, a European venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, and Li Ka-shing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Cheung Kong Holdings. All told, Joost raised $45 million. Although Joost creators had copyright problems in developing Kazaa, it doesn't exist with Joost, as it is making above-board program deals. Previously, CBS and Viacom were two major companies that made programming deals with Joost. Joost says it now has 150 channels of video.

The difference between Joost and most other video Internet players is that Joost uses peer-to-peer technology, which shares computing power and bandwidth. The more people that use Joost, the better quality the video will be.